In the Heart of the Rockies | Page 4

away for a long
time."
"Well, Tom," the girl said after another pause, "it seems very terrible,
but I own that I can see nothing better for you. There is no way that you
can earn money here, and I am sure we would rather think of you as
mining and hunting with uncle, than as sitting as a sort of boy-clerk in
some dark little office in London or Portsmouth. It is no worse than
going to sea anyhow, and after all you may, as uncle says, hit on a rich
mine and come back with a fortune. Let us be going home. I can hardly
bear to think of it now, but I will tell Janet, and will talk about it again
this evening after the little ones have gone to bed."
Tom had the good sense to avoid any expression of satisfaction. He
gave Carry's hand a silent squeeze, and as they walked across the
common talked over their plans for setting to work to get pupils, and
said no word that would give her a hint of the excitement he felt at the
thought of the life of adventure in a wild country that lay before him.
He had in his blood a large share of the restless spirit of enterprise that
has been the main factor in making the Anglo-Saxons the dominant
race of the world. His father and his grandfather had both been officers
in the royal navy, and a great-uncle had commanded a merchantman
that traded in the Eastern seas, and had never come back from one of its
voyages; there had been little doubt that all on board had been
massacred and the ship burned by Malay pirates. His Uncle Harry had
gone away when little more than a boy to seek a fortune in America,

and had, a few years after his landing there, crossed the plains with one
of the first parties that started out at news of the discovery of gold in
California.
Tom himself had longed above all things to be a sailor. His father had
not sufficient interest to get him into the royal navy, but had intended to
obtain for him a berth as apprentice in the merchant service; but his
sudden death had cut that project short, and his mother, who had
always been opposed to it, would not hear of his going to sea. But the
life that now seemed open to him was in the boy's eyes even preferable
to that he had longed for. The excitement of voyages to India or China
and back was as nothing to that of a gold-seeker and hunter in the West,
where there were bears and Indians and all sorts of adventures to be
encountered. He soon calmed down, however, on reaching home. The
empty chair, the black dresses and pale faces of the girls, brought back
in its full force the sense of loss.
In a short time he went up to his room, and sat there thinking it all over
again, and asking himself whether it was fair of him to leave his sisters,
and whether he was not acting selfishly in thus choosing his own life.
He had gone over this ground again and again in the last few days, and
he now came to the same conclusion, namely, that he could do no
better for the girls by stopping at home, and that he had not decided
upon accepting his uncle's invitation because the life was just what he
would have chosen, but because he could see nothing that offered equal
chances of his being able permanently to aid them at home.
When he came downstairs again Carry said:
"The others have gone out, Tom; you had better go round and see some
of your school-fellows. You look fagged and worn out. You cannot
help me here, and I shall go about my work more cheerfully if I know
that you are out and about."
Tom nodded, put on his cap and went out; but he felt far too restless to
follow her advice and call on some of his friends, so he walked across
the common and lay down on the beach and went all over it again, until
at last he went off to sleep, and did not wake up until, glancing at his

watch, he found that it was time to return to tea. He felt fresher and
better for his rest, for indeed he had slept but little for the past fortnight,
and Carry nodded approvingly as she saw that his eyes were brighter,
and the lines of fatigue and sleeplessness less strongly marked on his
face.
Two hours later, when the younger girls had gone to bed, Carry said:
"Now we will have a family council. I have told